The inventive concepts disclosed herein relate generally to the field of avionics data collection and/or transmission.
A flight data acquisition unit of an aircraft periodically collects avionics data (e.g., flight data recorder (FDR) data) during a flight. The collected data can relate to altitude, velocity, fuel level, time, location, electro-mechanical (e.g. engine) operation, and other parameters. The collected data is generally converted to a standardized data stream, such as the ARINC (Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated) 717 Protocol and stored in a flight data recorder.
An airborne aircraft can wirelessly transmit collected data to a ground station or receiver using a radio communications link, such as Very High Frequency (VHF) or SATCOM radio. Over the course of an entire flight, a large amount of data can be accumulated and/or wirelessly transmitted. However, aircraft data networks are designed to handle periodic data transmission, and it can be expensive to transmit large data streams. Also, it is often impractical to store large amounts of data collected over a long period of time in a flight data recorder.